State v. Britson’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 34 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 36 later decisions — most recently October 2009 · most notably State v. Nash (1985), State v. Zaragoza (1983)
2 federal appellate · 34 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Lockett v. Ohio · Santoni v. United States · Whitten v. United States · Culberson v. Mississippi · Cooper v. Fitzharris
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Q. * * * could you give your impressions as to Joe Clarence Smith as to whether he would, in your opinion, be mentally ill? A. It’s my opinion that he is mentally disturbed, yes. ****** I feel that Mr. Smith fills more the category of a, I would say almost a border-type psychotic person, with an abnormal psycho-sexual development, very strong neurotic traits, as I stated, almost bordering on psychotic traits, which drives him to compulsory aberrant actions. Unfortunately, often highly deviant and violent of nature. ****** Q. So you were familiar with the type of the deaths of each girl were committed, the suffocation by stuffing dirt in their mouths and stabbing repeatedly in the pubic area and the breast area? A. I was familiar with that, yes. Q. Would that type of killing itself be any indication of any kind of mental disorder? A. Not absolutely necessarily so. ****** Q. * * * ‘would his capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was significantly impaired but not so impaired as to constitute a defense to prosecution. Such as definite insanity defense. Do you think that he would be such a situation where he wouldn’t be able to conform his conduct because of — he was any way significantly impaired because of his mental disorder? A. * * * I think this man was compulsion — in a compulsionary manner driven to commit a series of acts which are based on very disturbed-type of psycho-dynamics, inner conflicts. *****”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Smith“clearly inadmissible on their own, do not become admissible because included in [the defendant's] taped confession”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.